Jazz Festival is March 22

Vocal jazz and swing choirs and instrumental jazz ensembles will be competing. The vocal groups will perform in the Student Center and the instrumental groups in Memorial Hall.

Along with the awards presentations at 5:30, the Chadron State instrumental jazz ensemble will give a concert in Memorial Hall. The CSC vocal jazz ensemble will give a concert at 1 p.m., also in Memorial Hall.

The vocal ensembles participating are from Alliance, Bayard, Chadron, Guernsey-Sunrise, Wyo., Hot Springs, S.D., Niobrara County High at Lusk, Wyo., Scottsbluff and Sundance, Wyo.

The instrumental ensembles involved are from Bridgeport, Chase County High at Imperial, Douglas, Wyo., Gering, Gordon, Hershey, Niobrara County and Sundance.

A few of the schools will have more than one group in each portion of the program. . For instance, Scottsbluff has four swing choirs while Bayard has three and Alliance two.

The festival’s adjudicators and clinicians will be:

--Gary Bacon of Scottsbluff taught music in Nebraska schools for 38 years, including 28 at Scottsbluff High School. After retiring from teaching, he worked as a consultant in visual and performing arts for the Nebraska Department of Education. He currently directs an adult choir, “The Valley Voices,” and three church choirs and teaches voice at Western Nebraska Community College. He was selected to the Nebraska Music Educators Hall of Fame in 1994.

--William Gibson, a trombonist who is an instructor of brass at Valley City State University in North Dakota and is the leader of the Bill Gibson Orchestra and the Sioux Falls Dixieland Stompers based at Sioux Falls, S.D. He has played the trombone in orchrestras conducted by Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Guy Lombardo, Les Elgart, Vaughn Monroe and others.

--Gregory Yasinitsky, coordinator of jazz studies and professor of music at Washington State University; is a saxophone player who has performed with Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Stan Getz, Manhattan Transfer, Mel Torme and many others. He also has written more than 100 musical works that have been performed worldwide.